The article Mentioned the two different experiences of watching Serenity : the fan who watched the series first and those who watched the movie cold. I'm not sure they really managed to address how it actually played out in the minds of the new audiences, though. I thought the article talked more about how Joss's script and camera shots were supposed to work. So...

I was wondering, does anyone have either the personal experience of seeing the film without seeing the show first themselves or knowing first hand someone who did? ...and does the film actually work well for that type of viewer? I've always wanted to know.

I watched the film first. It's good although you don't really understand the characters. I mean that you know these characters for general like this is the captain, the funny pilot, the man who loves grenades but you're losing the emotional depth. You don't really feel for them. I remembered that when i saw Wash died i felt like it's a shame he died, i like him. But when i re-watched it after seeing the series, i cried. It's a good movie but if you saw the series first, it's definitely adding another layer to it.

BreathesStory, I watched the film first when it was in the cinema, because I was a huge Buffy fan. I remember liking it, but it didn't convince me to watch Firefly (possibly because I was too young - the 15 rating in the UK was too old for me, but the guy at the box office sold us the tickets anyway because he said the film was okay for our age. Thanks, box office guy). Like The little asian says, you get an emotional investment in the story but not so much in the characters. When I first watched Firefly years later the characters I remembered best were Mal, River and Simon. I have a friend who also saw Serenity first and she distinctly remembers that those three seemed like the main characters, rather than getting a sense of the whole ensemble. I guess that's an effect of the brilliant exposition/flashback scene at the beginning.

I watched the movie first. I had never heard of Firefly and had never watched Angel or Buffy. I went into the theater hardly knowing what to expect, and I came out with a new movie on my top-three list. It was a seamless enough experience for me that I didn't even realize it was based on a tv show until I was doing research after watching it.

Now, when I'm introducing people to the series, if I think they'll make it through the whole thing on their own, I suggest the tv show first. If I'm not sure, then I recommend the movie first since I can usually talk people into humoring me for at least that long.

I too saw the movie first, after a random recommendation from a Society for Creative Anachronism post that showed up in my inbox. I went to see it, and it knocked me so hard to one side that I couldn't walk in a straight line for months...I was literally in lala land. I saw Serenity as often as I could until it left the theaters...while I waited for the Firefly box set to arrive in the mail. THEN I bought Buffy and Angel. And I've been here on Whednonesque ever since. Needless to say I have a very soft spot in my heart for the movie.